Matthew Kellway

[National Defence, April 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General suggested this morning that Conservative ministers knew they were lowballing the cost estimates in response to the PBO's report. We want to know when they knew that information, when they knew that the PBO's estimates were accurate.

It is clear that they knew before the last election and failed to tell Canadians the truth. Did the government know the true cost before the Minister of National Defence did his top gun photo shoot and announced the government would be purchasing the F-35? When will somebody take responsibility?

[National Defence, April 4th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I confess that it is very satisfying to see the history laid out and the conclusions reached by the Auditor General over his signature, but in fact there was very little that was surprising or new to those of us who have been following this issue closely.

One of the surprising things, and it goes to what the parliamentary secretary was talking about, the industrial benefits issue, was the finding that the government, in terms of its projections of industrial benefits arising out of this program, had been relying entirely on the prime contractors for the F-35, those contractors who had work provided to them under the program that had existed to date.

Those projections were regurgitated, reiterated by the government wholly in an unqualified and unchecked way. The Auditor General found that those projections were too often overly optimistic. So when the government members talk about how well managed that program was, they omit these very critical details about mismanagement of that part of the program. It seems, frankly, that the government's response to the Auditor General's report is simply another overly optimistic and frankly misleading approach to the F-35.

[National Defence, April 4th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I am following up on questions today with respect to the F-35 because the government has not at all been responsive to the questions we have asked or their responses did not seem credible or had the ring of truth. In fact, all of us on this side of the House have struggled to reconcile the facts, figures and news emanating from independent and objective sources with the government's facts and figures on the F-35.

The Auditor General's report has provided us with an explanation at last and I will quote at some length from it. In chapter 2 of his spring report, he states:

National Defence did not provide complete information in a timely manner.

Nor did National Defence provide complete cost information to parliamentarians.

National Defence likely underestimated the full life-cycle costs of the F-35. The budgets for the F-35 acquisition...and sustainment...were initially established in 2008 without the aid of complete cost and other information.

It is absolutely clear that this $30 billion and counting file has been mismanaged at every turn by those responsible for the procurement process. Of equal if not greater concern is the government's response to the Auditor General's report. Not one minister has taken responsibility for this mess in spite of the fact that our system of government has as one of its foundations the principle of ministerial accountability.

Further, the government has left future management of this process in the hands of the very people who have so grossly mismanaged the file to this point. The sum total of the self-described comprehensive response to the Auditor General's report is the creation of a secretariat within Public Works and Government Services Canada to coordinate the future procurement of the F-35. There are many problems here but I will list just three.

First, how are Canadians to believe that Public Works and Government Services Canada will exercise better stewardship of this process going forward when it was in no small measure that department's dereliction of duty that contributed to the current situation? The Auditor General clearly stated that by endorsing the sole source procurement strategy, Public Works and Government Services Canada did not demonstrate due diligence in its role.

Second, Public Works and Government Services Canada disagrees with the Auditor General's findings that is failed in its responsibility. If that department cannot acknowledge the errors that it made in light of the stark evidence and categorical findings of the Auditor General, how can it be expected to take appropriate action going forward?

Finally, and perhaps most fundamentally, by naming this new bureaucracy the F-35 secretariat, the government continues, not just a presumption in favour of the F-35 but an explicit commitment to purchase this plane. In so doing, it continues along with the process for the F-35 but the procurement policies can never comply with the Government of Canada's legislation, policies and departmental guidelines for procurement.

Not only has no one taken responsibility for this fiasco as laid out by the Auditor General, but it seems clear that the Conservatives have learned nothing, understood nothing and are prepared to implement nothing that would correct the gross mismanagement of this file that we see to date.

[National Defence, April 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, that process is all about deck chairs on the Titanic. It was that Minister of National Defence who originally lost control of this file. The PBO, industry experts, anybody who told the truth about the F-35, all of us were demonized by the minister. All the while, he was misleading Canadians and rigging this procurement process.

Ministerial accountability means that the minister is accountable. Will he finally take responsibility? Will he get up?

[National Defence, April 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Defence can stop looking around. This is not a fishing lodge and there is no helicopter coming for him today.

This is the House of Commons and this is where ministers are supposed to stand up and take responsibility when things go off the rails. We knew the numbers were wrong. The PBO knew the numbers were wrong. The U.S. and other countries raised lots of red flags. However, the Minister of Defence carried on rigging this process. Will he stand up and take responsibility for this today?

[National Defence, April 3rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are having trouble with the facts, still, so let me help them.

In February of 2010, the Conservatives were told by the U.S. government that the F-35 “would cost more and take longer to finish than planned”, yet the Conservatives intentionally hid the facts from Canadians.

The Minister of National Defence even did his best to demonize the Parliamentary Budget Officer, despite knowing full well that the PBO was correct. Why did the Minister of National Defence attack the PBO and mislead Parliament?

[National Defence, April 3rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, a different minister, the same spin.

The Auditor General has been very clear. Conservatives used two different estimates for F-35 maintenance costs, one for internal decision-making and another lower figure for the public.

While the Associate Minister of National Defence has, day after day, dutifully repeated talking points, he was hiding a secret estimate that was $10 billion higher. I have two simple questions for the Associate Minister of National Defence.

Why did he mislead Canadians? Will he apologize?

[National Defence, April 2nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it seems daily that I, along with my colleagues, have risen in this House to ask the minister questions about this file. From the shadow of a mountain of evidence, including testimony from the F-35 program managers, the minister has denied what has been obvious to all of us for a long time.

This is a troubled program. Development program it may be, but based fundamentally on a miscalculation, according to the program manager. It threatens to cost Canadian taxpayers untold billions. It threatens to leave our air force with an operational gap. It is our effort to reconcile the mountain of evidence, including testimony that shows the F-35 is a troubled program. Most troubling in all of this has been the absence of openness and transparency from the government. Its conduct on this file has been a terrible disservice to our system of government.

[National Defence, April 2nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am using this time to talk about issues relating to the F-35 procurement. I am seeking clarity as there is considerable dissonance between the minister's talking points and what experts have been saying on the F-35. I will use this time to set out in a very broad way the wide gulf between the experts and the government and offer the government an opportunity to close that gap for us.

Tomorrow is the much anticipated Auditor General's spring report. It will review the government's conduct with respect to this procurement and its commitment to the F-35. This is timely as we have long awaited some clarity on this procurement initiative. Perhaps the government will use this evening as an opportunity to provide that clarity before the AG does.

Six weeks after issuing the statement of operational requirements for the CF-18 replacement, the government announced that 65 F-35s would be purchased for $16 billion. The first problem here is that a process which experts say would normally take about two years was done in a fraction of that time, just six weeks.

The next issue is cost. The Parliamentary Budget Officer's independent analysis has concluded that the F-35s will cost at least $30 billion, nearly twice as much as the government's estimate. Despite this, the minister has repeatedly said that by selecting the F-35 Canadian soldiers are getting “the best equipment at the best price”.

On March 2, after a meeting with the F-35 partners, the minister repeated his well used talking points claiming that “good progress” was being made. However, a week later, we learned that the head of the Pentagon's F-35 program had told the associate minister that production slowdowns would further increase the cost of each plane. The question arises: Why did the minister not share this information with Canadians?

Briefing notes dating back to last September indicate that while the government was saying that all was well with the program, it was privately concerned about price, production and the transparency of the program. A day after the Pentagon's top weapons buyer called the F-35 production plan an “acquisition malpractice”, the minister stood up to reaffirm commitment to the program.

The government has repeatedly said that it selected the F-35 because it alone meets the mandatory requirements. On numerous occasions the minister called the F-35 “the best and only aircraft that meets the needs of Canada's armed forces”. Last week, I received a document he had signed that said the same thing. However, on that same day the CBC revealed evidence indicating that this statement was not accurate.

How can we reconcile what the government is telling us with expert analysis when the information it gives us is so glaringly different from what everyone else is saying?

[National Defence, April 2nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, from that response I cannot tell whether the minister is unable or simply unwilling to do the math, but let me put it this way. In last week's budget, the government said Canada will “acquire an affordable replacement for Canada's aging CF-18”. Recent reports coming out of the U.S. show the price of each F-35 to be well in excess of $100 million each and rising. New Democrats know that the only way to get an affordable replacement for our CF-18 is through an open tender. The government has to date refused to hold such a competition.

Does the minister actually consider over $100 million per plane to be affordable for Canadians?